How to travel round Spain for free
It's amazing how far you can go with just an old violin, no money, and almost no discernable talent
I'm standing in the sun with my violin tucked under my chin. The plaza is dusty and quiet. It's not an ideal location for busking, but it's all I've got. I'm in Vigo, the Galician port town and starting point for my attempt to recreate the journey recounted in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, a wonderful travelogue by Cider with Rosie author Laurie Lee. In it, he walks across Spain in the summer of 1935, surviving only on money made by busking with his violin. I pick up the bow, ready to start my first performance, desperately nervous.
Seven months ago, I started learning the violin, confident that by the time I arrived I would be pretty good. But I had underestimated the complexity of the instrument and can only play five very short, simple songs. Very badly. Laurie Lee could play waltzes and Mozart. My best piece is the theme tune from The Muppet Show.
After a while an old man walks across and drops a coin in my case. A euro! Once you have a euro you can buy a bag of rice. And once you have a bag of rice you can walk for a week. The game is on. A couple of hours later I walk out of the city and climb up into the mountains to cook some rice over a fire. I have no tent, just a sleeping bag. I wake covered in dew but knowing, as Laurie Lee said, that there is nothing better than 'waking in a place that holds no memory'.
Galicia is the land of a thousand rivers and is lush like the Yorkshire Dales. I walk through it for days, passing dry-stone houses and tiny villages, playing for coins, swimming in cold streams. Eventually, I reach the central plains of Castille. Like Lee I slog through the hot, monotonous fields of wheat, though the irrigation sprinklers spare me the heatstroke that afflicted him. Finally, I reach the centre of Madrid. In four weeks, I have walked 500 miles, earned a princely €120, eaten a lot of rice and got much better at The Muppet Show theme tune. Travelling by foot means covering ground agonisingly slowly, and missing many nearby sights. But what you do see, you see so thoroughly it stays embedded in your memory forever.
Arbitrarily, I choose a bar to mark the end of my trip. I stand outside and play until I have enough money for a beer. I finish it, and leave my last coins as a tip.
WHAT TO PACK FOR BUSKING YOUR WAY AROUND EUROPE 'A diary and pen, a Thermarest camping mattress for a decent kip, and a silk sleeping bag - it keeps you warmer in winter and cooler on hot nights.'
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This feature first appeared in Condé Nast Traveller May 2017
Humphrey's map and camera
Euros earned busking
Alastair Humphreys in Spain